Today's Marketing Pulse
McKinsey predicts agentic AI will power two‑thirds of marketing activities
McKinsey’s new report forecasts that agentic AI could drive up to two‑thirds of all marketing functions, shifting AI from a productivity add‑on to a core strategic engine. The analysis notes early adopters are using generative tools, while the next wave will involve autonomous agents that orchestrate decisions across workflows, guided by a five‑step implementation roadmap.
X Invites Advertisers To Recycle Creative From Other Platforms
Elon Musk's X has launched a new ad feature that lets advertisers upload existing social‑media creatives and automatically apply expanded aspect ratios, including 4:5 and 2:3, without needing AI‑driven editing. The tool is available through Media Studio, Composer, and the Campaign Form, promising the same visual quality and performance as native assets. X introduced the capability as it seeks to revive its ad business after reporting its first revenue uptick in four years. The move also counters growing competition from Meta’s Threads, which recently overtook X in mobile daily active users.
Prioritize Contribution Margin Above All Other Metrics
99.7% to target on CM this month. Great growth teams are committed to a hierarchy of metrics. Every month is going to involve different trade offs to reach your goal. But great forecasting and execution requires being clear on the...
Sam Altman’s World ID Wins Major Brand Partners
Tools for Humanity, the iris‑scanning startup co‑founded by Sam Altman, is rolling out its World ID platform with high‑profile brand partners. A Gap store in San Francisco now hosts an Orb device that captures facial and eye data, while Tinder...
Samba: Essentials, Utilities Tally Most Ad Impressions in 2nd-Half 2025
Samba TV’s H2 2025 advertising report shows a sharp pivot toward essential and infrastructure categories, with utilities ad impressions jumping 48%, insurance up 18% and pharma rising 12%. Discretionary sectors such as career services, apparel and food & beverage posted double‑digit...
Minecraft Creators Want to Do More Brand Integrations in 2026
Brands are increasingly favoring in‑game integrations over fully owned virtual worlds, a trend already evident on platforms like Roblox and Fortnite. In 2025 advertisers shifted spend toward embedding logos and branded assets within popular user‑generated experiences. Minecraft creators, however, feel...
Tube Trends: MrBeast Uses Giveaways To Hit New Highs
Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, has leveraged giveaway‑centric videos to set new viewership records on YouTube. In the past 90 days his "Subscribe For An iPhone" clip topped U.S. charts with over a billion views, while a holiday $100K giveaway...
Most Brands Ignore This Visibility Engine — It Builds Credibility, SEO and Media Reach at Scale
Brands that scale fastest rely on distribution infrastructure, not louder messaging. Digital newswires act as a scalable engine that moves verified content through media ecosystems, delivering immediate reach and credibility. By syndicating releases to online publications, financial platforms, and AI...
Does Nostalgia Convert?
Target rolled out a dedicated Space Jam 30th‑anniversary endcap, featuring licensed basketballs, secret‑stuff bottles, and a popcorn bucket. The display was tightly curated, avoiding SKU sprawl and presenting a single nostalgic story. The article argues that while nostalgia captures shopper...
ChatGPT Lets Users Critique Ads, Pressuring Brands
OpenAI's @fidjissimo explained on the ACCESS Podcast with @alexeheath that the ChatGPT ad experience is will be unique since users could even ask ChatGPT about the ads running. The model will not know about the ads but a user could...
Top Social Monitoring Tools Helping Brands Stay Ahead of Conversations
Brands risk missing fast‑moving conversations on TikTok, Reddit, and other platforms. Social media monitoring provides real‑time detection of mentions, spikes, and sentiment shifts, while listening analyzes longer‑term themes and analytics measures owned‑content performance. The article outlines how teams should define...
Framing the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols (AAMP) Initiative
The IAB Tech Lab unveiled the Agentic Ad Management Protocols (AAMP), an umbrella initiative that consolidates its Agentic Real‑Time Framework, Agentic Audiences, and buyer‑seller SDKs. AAMP is organized around three pillars: a high‑performance execution plane (ARTF), open‑source agentic protocols, and...
Master Incrementality Testing: From Replication to Golf Handicap
"I think it’s the most sophisticated conversation that will exist on this topic." @oliviaakory's feedback after watching back this episode. She and @Davisg207 came by the office to talk about Cozy Earth's incrementality testing journey. I think it is incredibly instructive...
Why Segmentation Just Became the Top Database Priority for 2026
The 2026 Database Strategies & Contact Acquisition Benchmark Survey shows segmentation has vaulted to the top database priority, with 73% of marketers citing targeted segments as their primary focus. Unlike the 2024 era of retroactive measurement, firms now design databases...
Organic Surge: 307 Signups & New Editing Features
⚡️ WEEKLY VLOG 02 @ @ChoppityAI Founders are never truly satisfied with the speed of shipping, but looking back at this week... we’ve had some absolute bangers. We hit an all-time high of 295 signups in a single day (We broke...
Hire Demand Generation, Not Just Brand, for Growth
I was on a call with a CEO. "We are 100% Sales-driven. We have absolutely ZERO Marketing" I probed a bit more to understand. Turns out they hired a CMO once for a 8 month stint. All she wanted to...
Programmatic Live Sports: How SMB Advertisers Can Tap Into The Cultural Moment
Live sports remain a high‑impact ad environment, delivering strong attention and recall. A 2025 LG Ad Solutions study shows 48% of U.S. streaming sports viewers notice ads and 54% find them entertaining. Programmatic technology now offers SMBs access to premium...
Google Nano Banana 2 Promises Smarter, Faster Image Generation
Google DeepMind unveiled Nano Banana 2, the Gemini 3.1 Flash Image model that blends the intelligence of Nano Banana Pro with the lightning speed of Gemini Flash. The new model adds real‑time web grounding, sharper visual fidelity, and production‑ready outputs ranging from 512 px to 4K....
Consistent Brand Threads Beat Outdated Mood Boards
the best brand accounts have a through line of familiarity. content woven together by a thread that makes people comment “my show is on”. the old mood board model does not work anymore.
Applebee’s Strategy: Fewer Promotions, More Manager Visibility
Applebee’s parent Dine Brands trimmed its promotional calendar to four or five events a year, shifting focus to the core menu and the 2 for $25 value platform. The change helped reverse a slump, delivering positive same‑store sales in Q2 2025 and attracting...
Gemini Now Pulls Insights From Google Chat History
In the race to Jarvis, now Gemini can tap into Google Chat -> Google Chat is now a data source for Gemini, making your message history actually useful "In a new update on the Workspace blog, Google announced that Chat is...
Podcast Advertising Projected to $1B/Year by 2029 (EMARKETER)
A new eMarketer survey of 100 U.S. marketers shows digital audio advertising is gaining traction, with 67% of respondents already allocating budget to the channel. While only 25% plan to increase spend within the next year, 83% view incremental reach...
Unified Email and SMS Boosts Retention Trust
The retention stack at most brands is three platforms pretending to be one. Email in one tool. SMS in another. A "customer journey" that's really just a guess stitched together from disconnected data. Attentive solves this by putting email and SMS in...
How to Use Claude Skills to Pressure Test Your Writing with Synthetic Feedback
The article explains how to leverage Anthropic's Claude AI skills to generate synthetic feedback that pressure‑tests written content. By prompting Claude with specific critique templates, writers receive instant, objective comments on tone, structure, and audience alignment. The guide walks through...
Google's Nano Banana 2 Takes Aim at the Production Cost Problem That's Kept AI Image Gen Out of Enterprise Workflows
Google DeepMind unveiled Nano Banana 2, a Gemini 3.1 Flash Image model that delivers Pro‑level text rendering, subject consistency, and image search at roughly half the cost of the Nano Banana Pro tier. The new offering reduces per‑image pricing to...
Threads Adds Instant DM Me Shortcut for Private Chats
Threads is rolling out a new DM shortcut to select users in the U.S. and Canada “DM Me” is a new feature that automatically hyperlinks the phrase “DM me” in any post or reply, allowing people to message you with...
Azamara Cruises Introduces Travel Advisor Council
Azamara Cruises has launched a Travel Advisor Council composed of ten high‑performing advisors across North America. The council members, each with at least five years of cruise experience and AWA graduation, will commit to a 12‑month term to test ideas,...
Product Feeds, Entity Consistency, and Taxonomy Drive 2026 Retail SEO
💰 What is the most underrated retail SEO lever for 2026? Key takeaways from an insightful roundup by @SearchPilot : * Feeds decide eligibility. Weak product data does not push you down a few spots. It can remove you from...
Creative Diversity Drives Reel Reach, Prevents Rising CPMs
3 reels a week and 10 variations of the same concept is not a creative strategy that will save you from rising CPMs. Andromeda processes 10,000x more ad variants in parallel than Meta's old system. It has more creative combinations...
Borden Cheese Launches National Search for "America's Favorite Grilled Cheese"
Borden Cheese has launched a nationwide contest to crown “America’s Favorite Grilled Cheese,” inviting consumers to vote for one of four recipe contenders through March 24, 2026. Each vote doubles as an entry to win a year’s supply of Borden cheese and...
Validate Demand, Craft Standout Product, Let Creative Drive Sales
How to build a $10M+ ecom brand (based on some of the most expensive lessons I’ve ever learned) PRODUCT & BRAND - Dropshipping isn't a business, it's a test - validate demand then move to white-label or you'll be racing to the...
This March 23, We’ll Be Introducing the Gemini Advantage in Google Marketing Platform.
Google Marketing Platform announced the "Gemini advantage" at NewFront on March 23, showcasing AI‑powered Gemini models across its entire suite. The rollout promises deeper visibility into the consumer journey, real‑time data activation, and reduced fragmentation for advertisers. Leading brands will demonstrate...
Walmart's Advertising Revenue Is Outpacing Amazon's
Walmart’s advertising business surged 46% to $6.4 billion in FY26, outpacing Amazon’s 22% rise to $68.6 billion. The dollar gap narrowed from roughly 15:1 to 11:1, though it remains sizable. Growth figures include the VIZIO acquisition, while Walmart Connect – the core...
How Pepsi DRIPs Turned Wicked Into an Experiential Beverage Moment
PepsiCo leveraged its DRIPS platform to launch two limited‑edition beverages for the theatrical run of *Wicked: For Good* at Regal Cinemas. The drinks—Mountain Dew Emerald Mischief and Tropicana Lemonade Good Witch Swirl—were crafted with bold colors, boba and edible glitter...
The Real Battle in Premium & Social Content: Reach Vs. Activation
The U.S. hosts over 202 million adult YouTube users, 177 million on Instagram and 105 million on TikTok, creating massive ad‑supported audiences for creators. While a few, like Markiplier’s promotion of *Iron Lung*, have turned social clout into box‑office hits, most creators struggle to...
Outback Steakhouse, Noodles & Company, CAVA
Outback Steakhouse recorded a 0.9% traffic increase in Q4, its first rise in four years, driven by the popular Aussie 3‑Course value meals, though same‑store sales slipped 0.6% because of lower pricing. The chain will allocate $50 million toward further restaurant...
Buyers Satisficing: Time Constraints, Not Fear, Drive Choices
It can be too easy to look at buyer research and come away with a perspective that buyers make overly-safe, incomplete, and sub-optimal decisions. Worse, it can be too easy as a marketer to see buyers as needing us to...
Publisher Advertising Alliance Teams up with Microsoft Ad-Buying Platform
Ozone, a coalition of more than 500 UK and US publishers, has secured its first deal to list inventory on Microsoft’s Media Marketplace, exposing over 200 million monthly users to programmatic buyers. The integration leverages Ozone’s first‑party reader data, promising more...
Target Leans Into Spirit of Adventure with Roller Rabbit Collab
Target is rolling out a limited‑time collaboration with cult‑favorite lifestyle brand Roller Rabbit on March 7, offering more than 250 items that span apparel, travel gear, home goods and new categories such as luggage and outdoor products. The collection is anchored...
How to Monitor Brand Mentions in ChatGPT
ChatGPT now influences buying decisions but offers no native analytics, forcing brands to devise a dedicated monitoring strategy. Mentions appear either from the model’s training corpus or real‑time Retrieval‑Augmented Generation searches. The guide outlines a quick manual audit using targeted...
Use Hours Not Days to Boost Email Opens
“Hours” works better than “days” in email. Why? Present Focus Bias. Humans are hardwired to want instant gratification. We don’t like to wait. According to Jay Schwedelson of SubjectLine.com , you can increase your open rate by 24% by using...
Activation Holds the Hidden Growth Opportunity
In most of the growth troubleshooting I do — which spans qualitative research and a deep dive into product, marketing, and subscription analytics — activation is almost always where the opportunity is hiding.
ChatGPT Ecommerce Traffic Converts 31% Higher than Non-Branded Organic Search
Visibility Labs analyzed 94 ecommerce sites in 2025 and found that traffic referred from ChatGPT converted at a 1.81% rate, 31% higher than non‑branded organic search. While ChatGPT visits surged 1,079% over the year, they accounted for only 1.48% of...
AI SEO Hype Outpaces Real Results, Says Brand Leaders
SEO for AI—or AEO—is having a moment Profound just raised at $1B valuation But after talking to many brand leaders this week, most agree much of the hype in the space is outpacing results & no dashboard does the work for...
Cheap Experiments Outperform Expensive Guru Courses
I spent $10k on a Facebook ads course from a famous 'guru'. My ROAS went down. I spent $200 testing my own weird ad angles. Found a 5x ROAS winner in 48 hours. The market doesn't care about experts. Test...
Help Your Direct Bookings Bloom with Creative Seasonal Strategies
Spring’s longer days and holiday breaks create a prime travel window, prompting hotels to revamp direct‑booking channels. The article showcases seasonal tactics—bright homepage layers, limited‑time discounts, and gamified Easter hunts—that turn seasonal enthusiasm into bookings. Real‑world examples from Savoyen, Penta...
Doing Everything Right Isn’t Enough After Google Updates
One of the most common things I hear from site owners who were hit by Google updates: “we were doing everything right.” 🤔
Target High‑value Buyers, Not Discount‑driven Churners
Discounts get you customers who can’t afford the product. And so they churn when the discount wears off. Wasting everyone’s time, and unprofitable. Redirect your efforts towards getting customers who want your product so much, they think it’s too cheap.
The Loyalty-Building Advantages of Embracing Black Audiences
Brands that authentically engage Black audiences can unlock significant economic upside, as Black consumers are projected to wield $2.1 trillion in buying power by 2026. They are four times more likely than average shoppers to follow the WNBA and spend roughly...
Structure Your Homepage: Prioritize Outcomes Over Features
That’s the problem. • Homepage speaks to every persona • CTA assumes everyone wants a demo • Hero lists features, not outcomes High-converting sites are structured. Every element has a job. Fix the weakest section first. Then the next. See the 8-part framework 👇 https://t.co/JDMlMnrHfM
7 Content Strategies to Build Authority and Trust
7 Ways to Use Content to Build Authority and Trust in Any Niche (+ Real Examples) - B2B Marketing Blog | Webbiquity - https://t.co/CJYHcehmSM https://t.co/aQ6RDwYiCA